Kinin receptors and their antagonists as novel therapeutic agents

Plasma kinins are a family of peptides which play an important role in a va riety of pathophysiological conditions. As a consequence of the progress in the area of kinin receptors, specific kinin receptor antagonists will be a vailable in near future in order to provide more selective therapeutic moda lities for the treatment of diseases such as asthma, cardiovascular disease s, inflammation, pain, etc. Although the initial observation leading to dicovery of kinins has been per formed in 1909, important progress on the development of specific kinin rec eptor antagonists has been made in last two decades. This review emphesizes the physiological functions of kinins along with their receptor subtypes a nd post-receptor events in the cellular signaling. In this article, the lat est developments in the kinin receptor antagonists including nonpeptide one s have been reviewed.